A Story for Shuichi: Sleeping Beauty Retold
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: Not with lemon now... Yuki Eiri sets out to write a story for Shuichi, much to his fans and editor's dismay
1. One

A Story for Shuichi By Nix  
  
Disclaimers: I don't own gravitation.  
Eiri's fingers lingered on the keyboard. The keys were long ago smoothed over, shiny even in the modest light from his monitor. Shuichi was asleep in their bed. Eiri knew this to be true as much as he knew his heart beat. What he wasn't sure of was the next novel that was meant to flow from his fingers.  
  
He had given the outline to of Standing in the Snow to his editor. She loved it. It would be easy to write. He wanted to write something else. The story his heart called him to didn't have a name yet. It didn't have a whole story yet. What it had was the promise of Shuichi smiles, of peels of delighted laughter, and the rolling of those beautiful violet eyes. He wanted to write a story for Shuichi.  
  
Restless, he left the keyboard and padded silently through their house. So many things had changed. From the refrigerator, he retrieved an expensive bottled water. His ulcer didn't need the beer and neither did his soul anymore, but it also couldn't stand the damn pop that Shuichi drank.  
  
Dishes sat in the sink still, from having Tohma and Mika over. The evening had been pleasant. The night had begun better than the evening as he'd made love to Shuichi, and held his singer until sleep had evened his breathing, lulled him to peaceful dreams. Morning was near now, and standing on their porch, bottle of sparkling water paused against his lips, it was as though he were racing the sun to answer his question. Did he write the novel his editor wanted, or did he write the novel he wanted to give Shuichi?  
  
Color from the sun spread out over Tokyo. It wasn't really a contest. Shuichi won. Still, he'd write a story that spun his love for Shuichi, but shone so brightly that even his readers would love the Shuichi in his story.  
  
"Eiri," Shuichi called softly, padding out into the kitchen. "Did you sleep at all? It's not good for you, you know that, right?"  
  
"I know. I didn't sleep," he admitted, knowing he had to dress and go to an interview in a couple of hours, "but I dreamt a beautiful new story. A story of love that nothing could tarnish."  
  
Shuichi smiled and almost overflowed his fruit loops he was so busy watching Eiri. "You're so gorgeous when you're dreaming up stories!"  
  
Eiri just smiled. 


	2. two

Authors note: It has been said recently, that short is bad.. but this story comes in short bits for me, written as a reward to myself for getting other bits of writing done. So, I share it with you, I hope you find some value in it. I know I'm enjoying writing it!  
  
It was very difficult to know what kind of story he should write. When the idea had first come to him, he thought it would be easy. Shuichi wasn't a complex person on the surface. Eiri closed his eyes and pressed his thumb to the lines forming between his eyebrows. Diamonds weren't complex when you first looked at them either. He shook his head, shaking still slightly damp hair, then yawned.  
  
Shuichi would be home in three days. His editor wanted to see the preliminary draft in two. And yet he sat there staring at the outline. It wasn't a complex story. The editor's boss had called it a 'gay fairytale' and didn't think it would sell. At which point, Yuki had told them that he had sufficient funds in his account to publish Shuichi's story independently, sufficient value in his own name to make it work, and perhaps he could even get Nittle Grasper to do a sound track to go with it. Did they want the story or not?  
  
He closed his eyes that he hadn't realized he'd opened and told his rebellious stomach to stop flopping around like an indignant caught fish. This story did this to him, because it mattered. It told a real story, a story of his own heart, not some flashy story for someone else. Knowing that did not make him not want to puke.  
  
Maybe it would have been easier to put it down on paper, with a typewriter, the way his first novel had been written. One key striking the virgin white paper at a time, ink on paper forever. Not like the laptop. Two key strokes and the all would disappear, except that it wouldn't. This story wouldn't leave him.  
  
There on the screen he started again  
  
Prince of Dreams: the impossible heart By Yuki Eiri  
  
And the cursor sat there, blinking.  
  
The galaxy of love and respect he felt for Shuichi would never fit in a paragraph, not even if he'd done the outline already. If Shuichi were here, maybe it would be easier.  
  
Two days. He had two days to turn this in. He wanted this story under the same imprint as his other books, wanted it to have the same respect and status. And so what if the characters were really Shindo Shuichi and Yuki Eiri and not some ideal man and ideal woman?  
  
He tapped out a cigarette. Twenty thousand words. He could do twenty thousand words in two days. Sure he could.  
  
At the editor's office..  
  
The paper trembled in his fingers. Gay. Steel gray eyes read over the plot outline once again. Sleeping beauty does Cinderella and they're both male. Perversion. It was perversion.  
  
Yuki Eiri wanted something more real in his writing, the cover letter said, more true to his heart. John laid the outline back down and closed the folder. It wasn't his desk. He didn't get a say in the matters of what could be published and what couldn't. He was just the janitor, a nobody, but unlike them, he knew right from wrong and if Yuki Eiri wanted to write something close to his heart. Well, he could write about the vengeance of God too. Sleeping beauty. John knew just thing for that obscene pink haired singer. Just the thing. 


	3. three

He hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until whoever wouldn't stop knocking on the door woke him up. Yawning, he untangled his glasses from his face and rubbed his eyes. That they burned didn't give him one emotion or another although he could almost hear Shuichi fussing over him, even though his pink fire wasn't home. Habitually, he glanced at his watch. The small count down at the bottom gave 23 hours and 42 minutes left until the time that they'd both agreed that Shuichi's tour would be finished.  
  
It was one thing for him to lock himself in his room for a month to finish a novel; it was another entirely for Shuichi to be unavailable for six weeks. Whoever had been knocking, was still knocking and that gave Yuki Eiri an emotion, but it wasn't the kind that he wanted to practice these days. Fingers tense, he closed his laptop, set his glasses down on the polished desk, and silently walked to the front door.  
  
The empty couch begged him to stop and pet it on his way by, but he ignored it, the same way he ignored Shuichi when he felt like beating the hell out of someone. He stood for several more slow breaths before the door, waiting for the someone on the other side to stop pounding. When that didn't happen, he quietly took hold of the door knob and jerked the door open. "What in hell do you want?"  
  
This editor's mouth dropped open. She blinked. Yuki Eiri glared. She swallowed. "Yuki-san! You didn't answer your phone!"  
  
She clutched the latest draft of the out line for The Slumbering Fire to her Armani clad chest. Eyes looking desperate, she raked him over, looking for something that he had no idea under heaven what she thought she was looking for. He glared at her all the more sternly, feeling more and more uncomfortable in just a thin pair of black sweat pants and an older, but expensive blue shirt, which he probably hadn't buttoned properly. He didn't have to worry about such things when Shindo was away, and he liked it that way. "I unplugged it. What do you want?"  
  
"You didn't answer my emails all day yesterday or this morning, not since I got the new draft of the outline, Yuki-san."  
  
This was boring. "Is that unusual, Sandra-san?"  
  
"No," she said, drawing the last vowel out, fingers, now tapping at the edge of the slightly more worn than it had been portfolio. "Why," she asked, thrusting the thing out to him. "Why did you change your mind? Why that ending? My god, Yuki! Do you have any idea how worried I've been?"  
  
He rolled his eyes. "It's a clearly happy ending, Sandra-san. I know this is unusual for me, but as I have said," his tone was reproachful, as if he were repeating himself to an errant child, "Due to recent developments in my life, I felt I should write this as a gift for the person I love."  
  
"Oh, God, Yuki," she muttered, slapping his arm with the portfolio, her mouth unable to get any other words out.  
  
Sighing, exasperated, he took his own portfolio back and opened it, leaving the front door open for the usually sane woman to come inside. The last thing he needed was for Shuichi to see a photo of a sobbing woman on their doorsteps. Then he'd have a sobbing editor and a sobbing lover. Several steps inside he opened the cream colored portfolio. The string was bound wrong. He always bound it around the catch going clockwise. Sandra-san did as well, because he'd scolded her for it once. Now it was clockwise. "Who else looked at this? It was confidential between you and I, was it not?"  
  
"No one, Yuki-san," she said, stepping just inside, but not closing the door, as if she had to keep a means of escape open. "I wouldn't let anyone else see *That*."  
  
He gave her a look, but under the reprove was worry. He just didn't wish for the worry to show.  
  
The paper inside felt like his own paper, a heavy weight laid texture cream colored paper. He dropped the portfolio on the couch and held the first sheet up to the light. His own personal watermark was in the paper as well. But then he read it.  
  
His stomach knotted like Sakano-san on a bad Shuichi day. One page, two, three, then he sat down on the couch, blinked and read it again. His fingers trembled and he nearly crumpled the paper as he held the edges of all three sheets, flipping through them reading again. The plot was almost the same as his. All the high and low points, accept at the end, what was written on those sheets of stolen paper, Yuki forced out of his mind, refused to think of. Whoever wrote that ending for the story he meant to voice love and healing for himself and Shuichi, the person who wrote this other ending was dangerous. "  
  
Yuki flung the papers away, and they fanned out over the coffee table, the back of his hand pressing against his lips, echoes demons he'd laid to rest on the beach with Shuichi and in years of therapy shadow dancing very loudly around his thoughts. "I did not write that. How can you even think that I could?"  
  
"It's on your paper, your watermarked paper, Yuki-san," his editor accused.  
  
"Phone the police, see if they can find finger prints on it." Frantic, Yuki thought what to do. Suddenly he was afraid to touch anything. Someone had to have been in their home, to have gotten his paper. It was perhaps even printed it from his own printer, chills went over his shoulders, up his neck and he grabbed a fist full of his hair. "Yesterday morning, I went out. Wired Shuichi flowers anonymously and bought coffee, and beer. That was at 10:30. I had just sent the outline by courier. When did you receive it?"  
  
"2:30, that's why I had started emailing you, then calling," she said, staring now at the papers, shame and astonishment both rippling over her face. "You didn't write that? I should have known, your books never end so cleanly."  
  
"Cleanly?" He nearly snarled.  
  
"I mean decisively, usually your books end with a slight hint of ambiguity."  
  
"I am going out of town." He said, making up his mind. First he'd see Tohma, then he'd pick up Shuichi. K would probably insist on seeing that where they went was secure, and at this point, Yuki Eiri accepted that. Someone didn't like his new story and someone had been in their home.  
  
"Are you still going to write this story? Perhaps a pen name?"  
  
He didn't even bother to look at her. Her foolishness wasn't irritating enough to fire her over. "I will have the draft on your desk on time," he said, dismissing her. Leaving her standing there, the door still open, he went off to pack for himself. At least Shuichi was already packed. He wouldn't allow any harm to come to Shuichi. And he would damn well write the story he chose to write as well. 


	4. 4

AN: So, this seemed like it ought to be a song fic chapter. to the music which keeps me company as I write. // song lyrics// Still, I don't seem to be very good at song fics.. so just part of the song got used.  
  
//Between the perfect world and the bottom line  
  
Keeping love alive in these troubled times  
  
It's a miracle in itself//  
  
It came as a text message on Shuichi's cell phone. The concert had just ended and he wasn't even out of his performance clothes yet. New clothes for this concert too, yes they were. K had just about had a heart attack, but Shuichi liked them. The fans liked them. Black velvet pants, soft yellow silk shirt, the sleeves ripped to ribbons with bright red cuffs at his wrists. At his throat he wore a black collar with an S and a Y entwined. His hair, coming off the stage, was wild and pink like a fire, just like Eiri called it sometimes. The shirt stopped way short of his belly, leaving that tight and sweaty and way too visible to go outside. Over the shirt, he wore a bright red lame vest that went down to his knees and flashed light around him even in the dimmer light of the stage wing. And so he stood, just into the left wing, staring at his bright pink cell phone, the roar of the audience still behind him. "Narita 10 flt dly cme now lv Eiri"  
  
The message said to meet Eiri at the airport. That his flight had been delayed, but that he was coming to get Shuichi, that he missed him and loved him and they would go away, all crammed together with most of the vowels missing, but Shuichi got the idea. They'd promised each other a trip away after this tour! And it had to be Eiri! He was the only one that had this cell phone number! Shuichi turned back to the stage, holding up the phone to Hiro just as he was coming off the stage.  
  
Hiro paused, took the phone, scrunch up his face, mumbled something about also getting a call and this was for him. He'd see Shuichi in a week in Tokyo, cuz he was going to Kyoto. Shuichi nodded, hearts in his eyes, and glomped his best friend in all the world. At moments like this, holding to each other, sometimes there was just a moment when they could have been the lovers. But they weren't.  
  
K frowned at the whole scene, but had long ago realized that trying to control Shuichi when he went to his muse was like trying to drink the wine without taking out the cork. Besides, he had bigger problems. Prank calls. He'd changed his number twice, and still he kept getting outrageous prank calls. Sometimes they were wrong numbers, or wanting pizza. A couple times they'd seemed almost serious, threats against 'Yuki's Pink Fire', but K didn't take them seriously, there was just something ridiculous about them. It was the end of the tour, with a break planned for the band anyway. On top of that though, he was getting close to finding out who was doing it and how! He had help and he'd find them!  
  
In the mean time, he missed Shuichi grabbing his plain American trench coat and sneaking out the back door. The rental car he'd ordered had been delivered and he escaped quickly, out the back, even though he could hear Suguru screaming for them to all come back and have a curtain call. As soon as he broke free of the theater though a wild energy caught him and he was running. He'd swiped K's hat too and had his sunglasses.  
  
As stealthy as possible he was out of there! The car was just right. Sporty, but not the 'give me a ticket now, please' kind. Not fast enough for Eiri to kill them with, but fast enough that he'd be able to enjoy the curves on the way to the beach! It was like going home! Home to the first time Eiri had asked him to call him by his real name, the first time he'd taken Eiri! Home! To the beach house where he'd known beyond all music and need and love that he and Eiri were together and they'd never not be!  
  
The car tires protested as he left the back lot. He turned the radio on. Christian, and screaming about the sin of homosexuality too! He sighed. He had a good Christian friend, another musician who played good enough that Shuichi had thought about doing music together and she only said that God loved and she'd let him and God work out whatever, not her place. Shuichi liked her well enough. The station wouldn't change though. Watching the traffic that was too much as everyone else was leaving the concert too, he kept pushing the search button but got only that damn message about how he ought to go to hell! Frustrated in the extreme, he finally figured out it was a tape. Deeply frustrated he threw the thing in the back seat and amazingly, he found the radio also on a Christian station.. but it was his friend singing, "For the love of God holds to no lies! Love Love so true! It reaches to the heart of every soul and calls home the lonesome dove!"  
  
Yeah! And it had a good beat too! He shifted into a higher gear and pretended he was Eiri as he sang with his friend at the top of lungs!  
  
Then there was a small beeping and he looked down to find the gas almost gone! On a fresh rental? The cursing he was doing as he pulled into the station, he changed the station.  
  
//Wild Angels, Wild Angels  
  
Watching over you and me  
  
Wild Angels, Wild Angels  
  
Baby what else could it be?//  
  
Happier now, he got out of the car, leaving the keys in it no less and danced into the store. A couple minutes later, ice cream cone in hand, he danced back to the car. So there, pumping gas, and singing a little loud, he was singing the song he hadn't finished for Eiri yet, to an ice cream cone microphone.  
  
The airport was only another half an hour away. He'd get there. If Eiri was pissed, he'd just telling the truth and sing to a different microphone! Yeah!  
  
Back at the theater, K finally got a real call. Tohma nearly screamed into the phone, "Where is Shindo? Eiri has received threats against himself and Shindo," Tohma said, but K had known him long enough to know that he was nearly hysterical. Someone had broken into Yuki Eiri's home, stolen paper, forged a disgusting outline, and poisoned some of his food, no nothing had come of it, but the main target was Shindo, it seemed. Eiri had gone out of town, but not to where Shindo was. The plans had been changed. K was to get Shindo and bring him to Kyoto. There they would find a place to take their vacation while K and Tohma sorted it out.  
  
K scowled and caught hold of Hiro's arm, as Tohma was still ranting through the phone. "Where is Shuichi?"  
  
"Gone," Hiro said, closing the case on his guitar. "He went to pick up Yuki."  
  
"Tohma!" K snarled. "Yuki is Kyoto, not Narita? Is that true?"  
  
"Yes! I saw him not more than three hours ago! He said he would wait."  
  
Hiro looked up, frowning. "He got a message from Yuki, to meet him at the airport."  
  
K ran for the door.  
  
//There are some nights  
  
I watch you while you dream  
  
I swear I hear the sound of beating wings.// 


	5. 5

AN: And still with the song lyrics. This story just feels really important to me. They lyrics are from Wild Angels by Martina McBride.  
  
He had promised. The plane touched down, then lifted off again, only to settle firmly on the ground. It was not a long flight from Koyto to Narita. The small commuter plane he'd gotten a seat on had been faster than he'd expected. Tohma would understand. Eventually. Eiri lifted the edges of his jacket and sleeve cuffs. It was ten minutes after ten. Shuichi would be here still.  
  
They'd told him the next flight out to Tokyo didn't leave until one o'clock, so he was fairly sure that Shuichi would stay in the hotel for one more night. He leaned back against the seat, only distantly aware of the airport lights outside the window as they passed by. He would have called, messaged, something, but he was afraid that someone would intercept or that Tohma would try to hinder his movements. If Shuichi knew he was coming, it would only be moments before Hiro, then K, then Tohma knew. Eiri imagined the scene in his mind, Shuichi waving the cell phone around. So he'd not told him.  
  
He'd rent a car, find the hotel, then they'd got away for a while. Images of what had been written as the ending on his book ghosted up into his mind and he swallowed, wished for something harder than beer. Sometimes keeping his promises to Shuichi got pretty hard. Of course, what he really needed was a long drink of Pink Fire and a rum and coke would just make that farther away.  
  
When the plane came to a stop, he flicked the seat belt, took his carry on from the seat next to him and made for the exit. It was only a twenty seater, and only half full at that. A family of five, himself, a business woman who spoke French, most of the flight she was yelling in French on her cell phone, and another man who looked like a religious man of some kind, a missionary from America perhaps. Yuki hadn't said a hardly a word the whole flight, but now that he was here, the air brushed over his face and he felt safe for the first time two days. He felt alive, tension left him leaving him with a different kind of tension that only Pink fire could burn away.  
  
"Yuki-san," the lone stewardess said, touching his arm lightly.  
  
He paused, turned to her, the lights of the airport reflected over his eyes, spilled pink neon on his cream colored jacket. She smiled, and tucked her chin, bit her lip, and he knew it was coming. He smiled back, plastic, but such a perfect smile. He patted down his pocked and found a pen. The smile became genuine as his fingers moved over the engraved words. 'Always all my love, Shuichi.' One of these days, Eiri thought. He was going to write that, 'Always, all my love, Shuichi!' for someone, because sometimes, he was only signing because he thought of Shuichi. She held out her book, his second to last.  
  
He took it, stepped out of the way so the family could exit the plane, right down to the pavement then off across to the airport. It was a bit more private that way, and another reason Eiri liked the small commuters over the bigger commercial ones. Opening the book, an argument they'd had came back to him. It was an historical romance and the hero had tipped the lady of his heart back, stared into her eyes, and then kissed her with passion. Eiri'd written it before he meet Shuichi and he would not give into his lover's begging to be dipped and kissed like that, no matter how much Shuichi begged. Eiri had almost spent the night on his own couch over it, but Shuichi had given in and he hadn't gotten dipped.  
  
Eiri tapped the edge tip of his pen to the paper and tried to get his mind back to the present and out of fantasies of holding Shuichi. In the end, he wrote, "To the lady who helped me remember a gift that I could give, grateful, Yuki Eiri."  
  
He could still hear her squealing like a schoolgirl as he walked towards the airport. Much to his annoyance, the missionary from the flight caught up with him and held out his hand as if to introduce himself. Yuki gave him a cold look, one that had sent editors crying before, but got him now nothing more than a bigger smile.  
  
"I'm John! You must Yuki Eiri! I'm so pleased to meet you," the man said in English.  
  
Yuki wished for sunglasses of invisibility, or something that only Shuichi could pull off. Without taking his hand, Yuki nodded politely. "Visiting from the States?" he replied in English, politely.  
  
The man nodded, "Actually yes! How did you know? You speak very good English! I'm here for two years, working as a missionary, taking odd jobs as I learn better Japanese. It's been quite the culture shock! My family is a big fan of yours, of the translations of your work."  
  
"Thank you," Yuki replied, unsettled by another fan so soon. "There is a big difference in cultures. I must go now. Have a pleasant evening, John- san."  
  
Yuki turned abruptly and headed towards a different terminal entrance.  
  
"Now you shouldn't oughta be like that! I was just being nice," John called out after him.  
  
Yuki ignored him, and kept walking. What was the man going to do, shot him?  
  
Another plane was landing and he told himself it would be a good excuse to get in off the tarmac. Then he stopped and almost dropped his bag. Shindo Shuichi was pasted to the window, watching the plane land. Shuichi was waiting for him. There wasn't really any doubt. Between his belly and the window was a huge sign that read, "Pink Fire for Rent!"  
  
Yuki Eiri covered his face with a hand and started to laugh. That was a fantasy he'd wanted to play, months ago, and Shuichi had refused hard core. He was not a street walker, not even in the living room, he'd said, and now he was for rent in the airport. They were a romance novel, the two of them. He picked up his pace and got into the terminal.  
  
Shuichi never saw him coming. He dropped his bag on the chair next to him and the singer looked over his shoulder. "Eiri!!"  
  
Eiri caught him in his arms, spinning around with Shuichi attached to him like some cheesy movie and for once, Eiri really didn't mind. They were both safe, both happy. "Eiri! How did you get here so soon! I was afraid I'd be," Shuichi started, but Eiri cut him off. He got him on his feet and dipped him back over, just like in the book, one hand behind his head, one at the small of his back and he kissed him, deeply just like in the book.  
  
It was such a sudden movement, no warning for Shuichi and none for the person who sent the dart.  
  
It hit in a brown bag wheeled by a rather portly European man, the little brown and read pheasant feather at the end of it almost blending in so that no one saw the dart at all.  
  
Shuichi returned Eiri's kiss, tongue to tongue and they were both thinking the same thing.  
  
Next Chapter..  
  
Pwp lemon in the airport bathroom. 


	6. 6

AN: And here is the real one! Probably better than the first! It's a lemon.. way lemon.. so if you don't wanna read a lemon.. don't.  
  
AN2: Lemon has been clipped for the sanctity of this website. It was because of this chapter that SB nearly was taken down.. Sooo it's just a lemon hint. ALSO. now that I"ve seen the end of Gravi. this chapter is very OC.  
  
Right there in public, enough public that it made Eiri's stomach knot, even if there were only a few people around, Shindo Shuichi rose up on the balls of his feet, one hand to either side of his blond lover's face and kissed him. If Shuichi was Pink Fire, Eiri was Shuichi's cool moonlight and there were just times when Neon bright had to over take the moon.  
  
Eiri held him, both hands on his around him, on the back of his shoulders, but it was Shuichi that drove the kiss, re-learning Eiri's mouth, intimate knowing of lips, and tongue, teeth, even the slightly crooked one to the back and the unfinished crown, knowing Eiri down to the last detail. He knew him in the almost shy non-resistance of Eiri's tongue, in the moments it took Eiri to accept the kiss, to re-remember the depth of knowledge that his Pink Fire kept of him.  
  
The balance shifted though, for Neon might be bright, but the Moon dances with Gravity to pull the tides, and Eiri pressed Shuichi's body to him, aware of the size difference, the smaller body, the more muscular body, this precious body that held the soul who's light drove the moon. Eiri broke the kiss and drew moist lips to Shuichi's ear, leaving a trail of sensation tingling from lips to cheekbone to ear. "And so, Pink Fire, can I rent you? Right here, right now?"  
  
"Chairs are too hard," Shuichi whispered, hair rising with goose bumps over the back of his neck as his breath danced over Eiri's cheek. "I want you too."  
  
Too impatient to hold the scene, to pretend to be prostitute and client, Eiri let the effort go and just grabbed Shuichi too him, holding him feeling the breathing in his body, small involuntary movements, chest expanding heart beating, and always the wiggling that Shuichi never managed to calm for long. "I'm so glad you're not hurt."  
  
"Why would I be hurt?" Shuichi said, as the bathroom door caught his attention. The area was almost abandoned anyway. Just an American and a few stewardesses. "Bathroom, I want to go to the bathroom. Right now."  
  
"Now?" Eiri said, frowning, disbelieving.  
  
"Yeah, right now," Shuichi took hold of Eiri's hand and started to draw him almost unwillingly towards the bathroom. "You have to help me! All these stage clothes! I just really need your help!"  
  
Blinking, Eiri became aware of the stage clothes then, the choker and the tight black denim that stretched around Shuichi's hips like paint. Cut low, the pants revealed his belly button and almost a bit of hip as well. Silver zipper pulls teasingly spoke of zippers on either hip and even made the slightest tinkling sound as he moved. Almost unconsciously, the singer danced as he pulled Eiri towards the bathroom and those low slung pants moved against his bare belly flowering the space between them with take me vibrations.  
  
His sleeveless coat of red vinyl danced with the light, turning the empty airport waiting room into a semi-private stage. Damp pink hair clung to his face like the white silk from his cropped top clung to the hot skin of his chest. Along one bare arm, a temporary tattoo of a volcano erupted red and blue flames up his arm, the smoke and fire curving over nicely developed muscles. Along the other it was the night sky, done with Japanese curling clouds. His hair still wet from being washed rough shod in the sink, clung down to the back of his neck, showing itself to be a little longer than it had been when they'd first gotten together.  
  
The stage make up was mostly gone though; just a hint of eyeliner and bright lipstick remained. Below the temporary art work, gauzy armlets covered his wrists, and did a poor job of hiding the black leather cuffs with the stainless steel D rings to either side of his wrist. "You wore that on stage," he asked, not having seen this costume before and sure that half a million fans were now laying at home dreaming about his Shu-chan! "You look like sex incarnate."  
  
Shuichi laughed, head tilting back, eyes never leaving Eiri. Walking backwards, still laughing happily, Shuichi tugged a little more. "Come on, I want you to rent me!"  
  
Eiri had been about to think about his bag, about to be rational. Every moment for the last 48 hours he'd been nothing if not vigilant and almost paranoid, but Shuichi was here, laughing and as he watched that little finger slip under the front clasp of that little belly baring shirt, he forgot. Shuichi levered his little finger out from under the edge of the shirt, pulling the edge up as he lifted. The clasp almost came undone, but he slowly drew that wicked little finger, the one that matched the one Eiri usually started preparing him with up over the thin cloth covering his chest, then over his throat, chin, along the edge of his lip and into his mouth, with a wet and unquiet suckling.  
  
The Yuki that used to be probably wouldn't have been in Narita in the first place. Eiri felt the emotions coming, rising in him with all the alpha protectiveness left in the human species. Both hands caught Shuichi's shoulders and for a moment, he was wolf, pure wolf, embracing his smaller lover, kissing him with the need of repossession and security and passion. That was in his wolf too, a wolf called by the moonlight of his own nature. Shuichi submitted happily, a happy puppy possessed by Eiri's full moon wolf.  
  
Once in the bathroom, Shuichi found himself in the farthest stall from the door, pressed to the back tile wall, the wolf in Eiri's eyes eating him alive. One hand to either side of his face, palms to the tile, Eiri leaned closer, kissing, very gently, offering his emotional throat to his lover. Tenderness like this, after the wolf was their emotional dance for making it safe between them, not matter where they were. Shivering now, Shuichi leaned forward, letting the hard measure of his need touch against Eiri's accepting the offer of tenderness, intimacy, both emotional and physical. "I want you, Eiri, here, now."  
  
The growl at the back of Eiri's throat was the last of the protective wolf. He was just Eiri again. He cupped Shuichi's chin and lifting his face. "Talk to me, Shuichi."  
  
"Oh," Shuichi gasped. This was a rare thing. Usually Eiri wanted sex quiet, sex like a shadow, pleasure of all kinds, but quiet like they were sneaking. "Eiri, you're so sexy. I dreamed about you last night, about you holding me and telling me you loved me and finger fucking me while I was still sleeping."  
  
"Did you get off," Eiri asked, kissing the side of his Shuichi's mouth, kissing back to his ear, then biting softly.  
  
"Ahhhhhh." Coherent thought wasn't the brightest of Shuichi's skills just then. "Yeah, Eiri."  
  
Kissing Shuichi's relaxing form, letting his little one nuzzle, Eiri was content, though he wished he'd had the nerve to ask for the rest of that fantasy, the bit that both terrified and seduced him. "We can play when we get to the coast?"  
  
"We're going to the coast for sure!?" Shuichi tried to start bouncing and Eiri held him in place. "Yeah, of course, Eiri! Anything you wanna play!"  
  
Now they just had to get away from the airport before anyone such as K or Tohma caught them. "Oh fuck! I forgot my bag."  
  
"Eiri?" Shuichi asked, confused. "What was in it?"  
  
The money and ID were in his wallet, so, "Just clothes, my travel computer, but all the data is on the remote storage, so if I lost it, it's not that bad. I'd rather have had the time with you."  
  
Shuichi blinked gently turned around and working on fastening his pants again, not really caring about what needs cleaned. "Okay, Eiri. You're being nice, even for you, and nice a lot, so what the hell is going on? Not that I mind, mind you, but still." 


	7. 7

Sleeping Beauty 7  
  
"Well?" Shuichi demanded, fighting with the second zipper. His hair was drier now, and taken to standing on end in the most unflattering ways. The florescent light gave his eyes a more purple look and that they were narrowed, pink eyebrows drawn down like a ferocious pink fox.  
  
Yuki had taken a step back, the stall door now at his back as he closed his own pants, and tried to tuck in the dark blue shirt. "Well, what baka? I can be nice to you if I want."  
  
"Yeah," Shuichi snarled, leaving the zipper half way. Yuki could almost see the angry fox ear twitching in Shuichi's disastrous hair, "But when nice goes to the point that you'd rather screw me in the bathroom than protect your computer, when I'm that much more important than your writing, something's WRONG and you're not fucking telling me about it and that makes me ANGRY, Eiri! You promised! You promised that you wouldn't keep things from me anymore! So what is it? What's wrong? What's soooo scary that you're this relieved that I'm not hurt? What the fuck is going on?"  
  
Wolves walked alone really well. Eiri opened the stall and crossed to the sink, washing his face he thought furiously for some way to explain, but still keep the details quiet, to explain and share, without touching the dark heart of his fear.  
  
Shuichi though stood in the stall doorway, one hand on either side, a demon fox harassing a wolf and not caring about the size difference. "Stop it! Stop thinking about how to dress it up all nice, Eiri! I told you in New York that not even death could come between us, but you're doing it! At first it was that asshole mask you wore, acting like a perfect bastard half the time, and then, at the beach, we promised and you gave me your name and we promised, no more walls, no more hiding no more fucking head games."  
  
Eiri spun then, his own eyes on fire, blue desperate love and fear. "Baka! Stop it. Give me time!"  
  
"I've given you time, Eiri. I give you every moment of my life. I should have known something was fucked when you didn't call me for the last two days. Now are you going to tell me or am I gonna go for a walk and get some air so I can calm down a bit."  
  
The pause hung in the air between them, the Neon and the Moon. "I'm writing book for you," Eiri said, rushed, words sticking to one another.  
  
"And?"  
  
He turned back to the mirror, studying them both in the mirror. "It was a gay romance. It was about you and me, about my real feelings, about learning to forgive and trust."  
  
More frustrated than he had been Shuichi slammed the side of his fist against the stall door. "Come on, Eiri!"  
  
"And I gave the outline to Sandra. She didn't like the whole idea, but I threatened to publish on my own. NG could back me, or I have enough money. I wanted the book to have the same status as my other ones."  
  
"Okay," Shuichi said, crossing to mirror to stand close to Eiri, not close enough to touch, but close enough to be soothing to both of them. "And? Some fan write a scary letter? Remember the time I cried for days over that stupid picture that girl had photoshopped?"  
  
"Yes, I remember, Baka," Eiri said affectionately, tiredly. "Someone broke into the apartment, took my own paper and rewrote the ending, printed it on my printer. And got it into Sandra's office in place of the real one. I think she about had a heart attack. I was afraid to call you, that who ever did this would find you. And Tohma wanted to take care of it all. He wanted me to stay in Narita."  
  
"But you did message me, Eiri. You told me you'd be here."  
  
"Baka, I didn't."  
  
Then it settled in for them both. Someone who could send a message so much like Eiri, on a private cell phone number. "Oh, Eiri. You shouldn't have kept this from me. I need to know these things! What if that message had sent me somewhere else? You promised you wouldn't do this. It's just another way to put up walls, being all protective like this? Did you think I couldn't look after myself? That I'm really a baka? Nothing more than a stupid pink haired child?"  
  
"No, Shuichi, that's not it." Eiri reached out to catch Shuichi's arm as he walked towards the door. He hated the emotions at times like this, closing off his throat and making his eyes burn. He couldn't lose him, this pink haired hyper singer, his pink fire! And the threat was real and horrible. The alternate ending to the book was too graphic, too painful and it had pushed al his buttons, scared him as deep as finally remembering what happened in New York. "Shuichi, please!"  
  
"I need to cool off, Eiri," Shuichi said, hurt in his violet eyes. "I love you, but I just want a moment alone. Get your bag, I'll get my coat. I'll calm down, but right now, just leave me alone."  
  
Eiri let his fingers fall back to his side, head bowed just a little. "As you wish."  
  
Shuichi left the bathroom with just the slightest jingle of his zipper pulls and Eiri turned back to the mirror, to reamed out emotionally to really know what he thought.  
  
The bathroom door had just finished closing with that little final swoosh they make when K screamed out, "No!"  
  
Eiri ran to the door, jerking it open. K was on the far side of the terminal, gun already out. It was pointed at the odd little American from the plane, who was pointing a gun at Shuichi. Shuichi looked over his shoulder at Eiri, smiled in that comforting, nothing can get me way, and turned. The motion tracked through the air, the flair of his red vinyl coat, the clink of the zippers and Eiri realized the D rings at his wrists. For just a moment, the movement looked like he might be on stage, his mouth open and singing.  
  
Sharp pangs of regret hit him. Shuichi had wanted him to come, to see the concert. It finally hit him then what the letters were at Shuichi's throat, S and E. The pop of the American's gun zipped through the air and Eiri ran. K's gun fired and the blond American screamed.  
  
Fingers to his neck, to the dart in angry reddening skin, Shuichi, continued to turn, looking to Eiri as if he'd solve everything. Eiri reached him as he started to drop and caught him against his chest, one arm behind his back, one hand reaching for the dart in his lover's throat.  
  
"Eiri," Shuichi whispered.  
  
"Baka, hold still," Eiri commanded, testing to see if the dart was simple or barbed. "I'll take care of it."  
  
"Eiri," Shuichi said, going limp against him, one hand trying to get a hold of his jacket, to hold himself up with, "Eiri, you're an asshole."  
  
"I know," Eiri said, tears mixing between their lips as he kissed him. He dropped the dart and kissed with all his heart, as if he had to cross the whole universe, in just this next breath, had to reach into Shuichi's body and cover his Pink Fire with his own soul, to protect him at any cost. And still Shuichi dropped, lips fading soft, body sagging in Eiri's arms, the fingers trying for his jacket fell to the side and Eiri held his lover, clenched tight to his body. "Shuichi! Shuichi! SHUICHI!"  
  
Author's note: This is not a death fic.  
  
" 


	8. 8

Sleeping Beauty 8  
  
"I don't know, Mr. Yuki," K said, his English rough, as if in his distress both English and Japanese had grown distant. "I don't know if he'll live or die, Mr. Yuki, or who to go after or how long it will take. So you have to stay here with him. It is your voice which will tie him here. Tell him a story, Mr. Yuki, so that he can't leave till he hears the end of it and I will bring the antidote back before you finish."  
  
Yuki grabbed a fist full of his blond hair and stared desperately at Shuichi's manager. Tears should be in the eyes, not in the throat and discontentedly in the pit of the stomach, so far from any outlet of expression. "But you arrested the man that shot Shuichi!"  
  
The last three hours had been the hardest of K's life. So much of his life was unraveling and the knot being untied most immediately was Shuichi's life. K laid his hand over his mouth and stared at the not quiet hysterical writer. When Shuichi had gone down in the airport, it had been Yuki Eiri's scream that had filled the terminal. Raw and excruciating, the scream had echoed off the windows and chilled K to the bone.  
  
Tohma and Ryuichi had both arrived at the terminal then, running as if they could save the world with not the tiniest hint of childishness in either of them. Tohma had actually drawn a gun, just a small black automatic, but even he stood still, eyes wide as Yuki's second scream had torn the night. A wolf can't howl with such anguish, only a man can.  
  
K had frozen there, his knee in the back of the man who'd shot Shuichi and Tohma had stood there blue eyes locked on Yuki Eiri, but it had been Ryuichi who crossed to them, singing when he got close enough for Yuki to hear him. Softly singing the song he'd sung with Shuichi, the first time Yuki had seen the pink haired singer on stage.  
  
As K stared into Yuki's eyes now, his mind was back in the airport terminal when Ryuichi had locked eyes with Yuki as he'd lifted Shuichi's wrist, feeling for a pulse, then counting it off, a living rhythm with small nods of his head. "He's alive, Eiri," Ryuichi had said and Yuki had dropped to his knees, drawing his lover close into his arms, no tears, only a tight clutching of the sleeping singer to his chest.  
  
Now they were at a friend's house, hiding at the edge of Tokyo, hiding from those that would try to help and those that weren't helpful. This was a place that K had come to only twice since he'd retired from the US intelligence service and both times he'd been close to death. The woman who owned the house was not a lover, had never been, so much as he could remember, but the energy lingered between them over the passing years. It had been in the most frantic need he'd stolen Shuichi and Yuki away from the others, away from the hospital that wouldn't have been able to help Shuichi and brought them here.  
  
Now Shuichi lay on the huge four-poster bed, the black velvet coverlet making him look pale, his hair striking, his stage costume like something from a fairytale. He lay exactly where Yuki had lain him, hand fallen out, palm up, his breathing so shallow that K had to insist in his own mind that Shuichi lived.  
  
"Mr. Yuki," K tried again, not knowing how to explain, how to apologize for this. "The best thing is for you to take care of Shuichi-san. I know this drug. I know it well, Mr. Yuki. Stay here, talk to him. He can hear you even though looks like he's in the deepest sleep," K lied with every bit of honesty in his heart. He could not let Yuki come with him. It wasn't all a lie. He did know this drug. He believed that Shuichi could hear them, he just didn't know it to be absolutely true.  
  
"We need this antidote," Yuki said, face drawn, fists doubled, eyes cold and dangerous as winter moon, distant from everything civilized.  
  
"We each need to do our jobs, Mr. Yuki. You stay and keep him here with us. I will go and find the people who did this and bring back the antidote. I wouldn't write novels. You don't shot people."  
  
Yuki took a step back, turned half way to look at Shuichi. He'd shot people. He'd do it again to save Shuichi and all the peace he'd built shattered, leaving his soul the way the scream had left his lungs.  
  
A small Chinese woman stepped into the room, her dark eyes making a log of every detail. "Yuki Eiri, the greatest loss in death is not the passing, but the destruction of those who remain. It is a grief to the souls that pass, so how much more must it grieve those who are not yet gone?"  
  
Yuki glared at her, intruding on his self-hate and fury. "Shuichi is too alive to die," he snarled.  
  
"Death visits all," she said, fastening the black cotton jacket, closing the little matte silk frog closure with small expert fingers. "If his life has touched you so deeply, then stay with him every moment of his life. Do not act where you cannot heal. Do as K asks, guide this singer's soul in the way of life, as he has guided you."  
  
"Tell him a story, Mr. Yuki," K urged. "We will return before dawn. You can't leave him alone, stay and defend him. I will find the Kiss, the antidote."  
  
Yuki turned to look at his lover, hesitating, even his anger beginning to fray under the memory of Shuichi's influence. If death did take Shuichi, he had a sudden image of the hole of despair he'd fall into. And suddenly, he'd never seen anything more beautiful than his still living lover. He knew, intellectually that if Shuichi were to open his eyes, and dancing violet were to be laughing with him, demanding to be dipped or taken to the beach, that would be infinitely more lovely, but right now, just knowing there was breath and perhaps thought in that sleeping for was more beautiful than Yuki felt he had any right to demand. "I'll keep him here. I'll tell him the story I wanted to write for him."  
  
He didn't bother to turn back to look at K or the woman. They had a job to do, and he didn't know what he'd do to them or himself if they failed. A story. He could handle a story. The room even looked right for a fairytale, with thick velvet curtains and the huge four-poster, the oval mirror sitting in the corner. It caught his attention for a moment. How had he gotten such circles under his eyes in three hours? His hair stood on end a bit, a stress induced Mohawk. It wasn't the image of the fairytale prince, skinny blond in a rumpled suit with his hair standing on end.  
  
Then his eyes fell to Shuichi, the stretch jeans still not zipped, the shirt askew, and somehow Shuichi's hair had managed to fall like pink silk around his face, fanning across the black velvet. Maybe it was because the wild little singer had washed it in the bathroom of the airport. That's the only way it would have been that wet, Yuki thought as he sat down on the bed beside him, long writer's fingers brushing through that hair. "You shouldn't wash your hair in the airport, Shu-chan. I told you that, right?"  
  
He swallowed back those unvented tears and thought about where to start with this story. "I don't like you to hear my stories until I'm don with them. You know that, so don't think this is a new pattern." He toed off his shoes and bent one knee, settling down on the bed. "Can you here me, Shuichi? You're always talking to me and I don't always respond. You called me cold, like I'm sleeping when you talk, and sometimes, you're right, but I do hear you. I hope you're hearing me." He lifted limp fingers and spread them out over his hand, petting them softly, "I don't like you to be unresponsive, Shuichi. I don't like it at all." 


	9. 9

Sleeping Beauty 9 By Nix  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation. After watching the OAV I am in a bit of doubt as to if I shall every write something with as much meaning and beauty as Gravitation, even if my stories are like. will detract from it in someway, but Alas.. I'm a wicked child and I like to write about them. So, this story is written completely for my own enjoyment and not for any kind of monetary gain.  
  
Note: This chapter contains a bit that may become a bit shocking and probably isn't canon.  
  
Eiri ran his fingers along the edge of Shuichi's cheek, fingers touching velvet cheek and velvet coverlet. He brushed his thumb over the singer's lips as he whispered, "Don't be angry with me, Shuichi. The words from Shining[1] are running through my thoughts and I'm afraid you think that's the only song I've written for you. I want to write you this novel for you, for me, to give a voice to these feelings I don't understand so well. How is it I can talk to you when I'm dreaming or your dreaming, but not when you can hear me?"  
  
He shifted so that he laid next to Shiuchi, pulling the singer close, his head resting on Eiri's chest. "I always say how substandard your lyrics are, but it's just that you're so vibrant and intense in person and when that's not in your music, I can't stand it. Why didn't you listen to me in the airport? Why couldn't you just one more time cling to me like some wet rag doll? You'd do so much better if you were the one awake. Your emotions would be ranging around and you'd cry. I feel like I'm going to break in half when I cry. It's so much easier for you."  
  
One arm around Shuichi, Eiri covered his face with is other hand, hiding his tears from himself as if they wouldn't hurt that way. "When you went home to your parents, I searched for you, but how do I search for you when I'm holding you here in my arms, Shuichi? K said you might hear me, that my voice would help you. Talking this much is going to give me a breakdown, ai no baka."  
  
With a tear wet hand, he sought out Shuichi's hand, holding the limp hand urgently. "Be angry with me then! Baka, some little dart can't make you silent, can it? I pretend like I'm ignoring you all the time. Now's your chance. Let me know you can hear me and I'll pay a hundred percent attention to you for our whole trip!"  
  
A very small murmur slipped from Shuichi, even as his fingers tightened ever so slightly. Eiri stilled his moving, even his breathing. "Do it again, Shuichi."  
  
The murmur was only a breath, deeper and longer this time, but the fingers tightened for nearly half a breath.  
  
"You can hear me," Eiri hissed shifting so he could see Shuichi's face. Completely relaxed, not the slightest expression. Even in sleep emotion and thought played over Shuichi's face. This was more like a coma or worse. For a moment, Eiri held him tight, face to his shoulder. Of course the vinyl of his jacket stuck to his tear wet cheek when he pulled away. One tiny squeeze of Eiri's fingers though brought him back from the whirling black sorrow. "I love you, Shuichi. Stay with me. Stay awake. K has gone to get an antidote. Shall I tell you a story?"  
  
Those fingers held for a moment longer, the paralyzing poison giving him only just this small control.  
  
"I'll stay with you. I'll tell you a story. I'll cross into the land of death to get you if you leave me, Shuichi. Not even death can separate us, isn't that what you told me?"  
  
Weaker, he squeezed again, but one slight whisper ghosted between them. "Story."  
  
Eiri was almost sure he'd imagined it. As if to seal it somehow, he touched his lips to Shuichi's pale ones, a very slight kiss, but Shuichi's lips moved against his in the tiniest and most precious kiss Eiri's heart had ever cherished.  
  
As he searched for the threads to the story he wished to tell Shuichi, his lips tingled with that kiss and his thoughts frantically searched for some way to start. This was no romance novel, no composite of character and prose, plot and tension, all balanced out like a cake recipe. This story felt raw before the first word was even found. It was the journey from dark alone into the pink fire of trust and growth. "It's hard, Shuichi. I don't want to just tell you some story. I want to tell you my story, our story. I want to tell a story that shows how important you are to me, how you brought me out of the long sleep. I was going to re-write Sleeping Beauty."  
  
He didn't know how he could still be crying. Shuichi had possessed him.  
  
The door creaked and Eiri looked up, holding Shuichi close, protectively, only to find Sakuma Ryuichi standing in the door, rabbit hanging from one hand. The mix of adult and child in him almost seemed balanced, as if his whole being needed to be present. "Is he?"  
  
"He's alive," Eiri said, "Who is here? How did you get here?"  
  
"Kumagoro told me," Ryuichi said, taking a step into the room. "I want to hear the story too. I want to be here to bargain with Death if he comes."  
  
Eiri took a slow breath, golden eyes glaring at the other singer. "Shuichi can hear you."  
  
"He can!" Ryuichi raced across the room and launched himself onto the bed. Eiri covered Shuichi with his own body and was surprised to find no impact, only Ryuichi's strong fingers rubbing his shoulder. "Let me help, Yuki Eiri. I love Shuichi too. Let me help you help him."  
  
Eiri straightened, shrugging Ryuichi's hand from his shoulder, glaring at him, nauseous now as well as grieving. There were no words for the jealousy that snapped at him now. He needed Shuichi and he wasn't going to share!  
  
Ryuichi just smiled though, in that completely beyond the rules of civilization way. "Yuki-san, I just want to help so Shuichi can sing with me some more."  
  
Closing his eyes, Eiri sat up, still holding Shuichi close to him. This only made it harder, harder to tell his story to Shuichi, he thought, but then, looking at Ryuichi's kind and unguarded blue eyes, he found very little reason to be angry at the man. How could he not love Shuichi as well, even if all he wanted was to sing with him? It was so much the better. And he found, it was easier to tell his story then too, as he was more accustomed to having an audience. The tale spun out of him, improvised as Shuichi's song at the Tokyo Bay Music Fes had been, nothing in it except courage and honesty. It started as a child's story might, drawing from truest truth that Yuki could find within himself. "Once there was a man lost in a forest, far from any place.."  
  
Next Chapter..  
  
Across town, K lifted the single remaining antidote dosage out of the safe.. Across the street, covered by night, the sniper tried to get a good shot through the smoky glass of the American Intelligence's covert office building.. A poison without an antidote was not very marketable, after all.  
  
----------------------- [1] For the lyrics to the song 


	10. ten

Sleeping Beauty 10 By Nix  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation. After watching the OAV I am in a bit of doubt as to if I shall every write something with as much meaning and beauty as Gravitation, even if my stories are like. will detract from it in someway, but Alas.. I'm a wicked child and I like to write about them. So, this story is written completely for my own enjoyment and not for any kind of monetary gain.  
  
Note: This chapter contains a bit that may become a bit shocking and probably isn't canon.  
  
Eiri ran his fingers along the edge of Shuichi's cheek, fingers touching velvet cheek and velvet coverlet. He brushed his thumb over the singer's lips as he whispered, "Don't be angry with me, Shuichi. The words from Shining[1] are running through my thoughts and I'm afraid you think that's the only song I've written for you. I want to write you this novel for you, for me, to give a voice to these feelings I don't understand so well. How is it I can talk to you when I'm dreaming or your dreaming, but not when you can hear me?"  
  
He shifted so that he laid next to Shiuchi, pulling the singer close, his head resting on Eiri's chest. "I always say how substandard your lyrics are, but it's just that you're so vibrant and intense in person and when that's not in your music, I can't stand it. Why didn't you listen to me in the airport? Why couldn't you just one more time cling to me like some wet rag doll? You'd do so much better if you were the one awake. Your emotions would be ranging around and you'd cry. I feel like I'm going to break in half when I cry. It's so much easier for you."  
  
One arm around Shuichi, Eiri covered his face with is other hand, hiding his tears from himself as if they wouldn't hurt that way. "When you went home to your parents, I searched for you, but how do I search for you when I'm holding you here in my arms, Shuichi? K said you might hear me, that my voice would help you. Talking this much is going to give me a breakdown, ai no baka."  
  
With a tear wet hand, he sought out Shuichi's hand, holding the limp hand urgently. "Be angry with me then! Baka, some little dart can't make you silent, can it? I pretend like I'm ignoring you all the time. Now's your chance. Let me know you can hear me and I'll pay a hundred percent attention to you for our whole trip!"  
  
A very small murmur slipped from Shuichi, even as his fingers tightened ever so slightly. Eiri stilled his moving, even his breathing. "Do it again, Shuichi."  
  
The murmur was only a breath, deeper and longer this time, but the fingers tightened for nearly half a breath.  
  
"You can hear me," Eiri hissed shifting so he could see Shuichi's face. Completely relaxed, not the slightest expression. Even in sleep emotion and thought played over Shuichi's face. This was more like a coma or worse. For a moment, Eiri held him tight, face to his shoulder. Of course the vinyl of his jacket stuck to his tear wet cheek when he pulled away. One tiny squeeze of Eiri's fingers though brought him back from the whirling black sorrow. "I love you, Shuichi. Stay with me. Stay awake. K has gone to get an antidote. Shall I tell you a story?"  
  
Those fingers held for a moment longer, the paralyzing poison giving him only just this small control.  
  
"I'll stay with you. I'll tell you a story. I'll cross into the land of death to get you if you leave me, Shuichi. Not even death can separate us, isn't that what you told me?"  
  
Weaker, he squeezed again, but one slight whisper ghosted between them. "Story."  
  
Eiri was almost sure he'd imagined it. As if to seal it somehow, he touched his lips to Shuichi's pale ones, a very slight kiss, but Shuichi's lips moved against his in the tiniest and most precious kiss Eiri's heart had ever cherished.  
  
As he searched for the threads to the story he wished to tell Shuichi, his lips tingled with that kiss and his thoughts frantically searched for some way to start. This was no romance novel, no composite of character and prose, plot and tension, all balanced out like a cake recipe. This story felt raw before the first word was even found. It was the journey from dark alone into the pink fire of trust and growth. "It's hard, Shuichi. I don't want to just tell you some story. I want to tell you my story, our story. I want to tell a story that shows how important you are to me, how you brought me out of the long sleep. I was going to re-write Sleeping Beauty."  
  
He didn't know how he could still be crying. Shuichi had possessed him.  
  
The door creaked and Eiri looked up, holding Shuichi close, protectively, only to find Sakuma Ryuichi standing in the door, rabbit hanging from one hand. The mix of adult and child in him almost seemed balanced, as if his whole being needed to be present. "Is he?"  
  
"He's alive," Eiri said, "Who is here? How did you get here?"  
  
"Kumagoro told me," Ryuichi said, taking a step into the room. "I want to hear the story too. I want to be here to bargain with Death if he comes."  
  
Eiri took a slow breath, golden eyes glaring at the other singer. "Shuichi can hear you."  
  
"He can!" Ryuichi raced across the room and launched himself onto the bed. Eiri covered Shuichi with his own body and was surprised to find no impact, only Ryuichi's strong fingers rubbing his shoulder. "Let me help, Yuki Eiri. I love Shuichi too. Let me help you help him."  
  
Eiri straightened, shrugging Ryuichi's hand from his shoulder, glaring at him, nauseous now as well as grieving. There were no words for the jealousy that snapped at him now. He needed Shuichi and he wasn't going to share!  
  
Ryuichi just smiled though, in that completely beyond the rules of civilization way. "Yuki-san, I just want to help so Shuichi can sing with me some more."  
  
Closing his eyes, Eiri sat up, still holding Shuichi close to him. This only made it harder, harder to tell his story to Shuichi, he thought, but then, looking at Ryuichi's kind and unguarded blue eyes, he found very little reason to be angry at the man. How could he not love Shuichi as well, even if all he wanted was to sing with him? It was so much the better. And he found, it was easier to tell his story then too, as he was more accustomed to having an audience. The tale spun out of him, improvised as Shuichi's song at the Tokyo Bay Music Fes had been, nothing in it except courage and honesty. It started as a child's story might, drawing from truest truth that Yuki could find within himself. "Once there was a man lost in a forest, far from any place.."  
  
Next Chapter..  
  
Across town, K lifted the single remaining antidote dosage out of the safe.. Across the street, covered by night, the sniper tried to get a good shot through the smoky glass of the American Intelligence's covert office building.. A poison without an antidote was not very marketable, after all.  
  
----------------------- [1] http://www.nittlegrasper.com/gravitation_nittles_music.shtml For the lyrics to the song 


	11. 11

Sleeping Beauty 10  
  
Intelligence work was part of K's past and he wished it had stayed there. It was like piloting a plane; if you didn't do it all the time, it wasn't safe to really do in a crisis. He was a music manager now, dealing with hysterical singers and picky keyboardists, with pink bunnies more than dodging bullets. Singers don't usually shoot back. Still his fingers remembered the combination for this safe, his finger print had been accepted. He was still K. He'd always be K.  
  
The older part of him was locked in this safe though, hidden so well that even newer technology could not ferret it out. It was the dose that his partner should have had and didn't get. It was the last Kiss in all the world. If K had been thinking tactically, thinking like an intelligence officer, he might have realized the importance of that bit of information.  
  
Sleeping Beauty was supposed to have died. The poison was supposed to have gone up with the lab. Of course, his partner wasn't supposed to get hit with the poison and be taken to a hospital as a John Doe either. By the time the antidote had been given to K and T located, the second dose of antidote wasn't required. Sleeping Beauty still haunted K's sleep from time to time, paralysis and loss.  
  
Hidden better than his own memories, he'd left the safe and the antidote here when he'd left the agency. The building would have to fall down before anyone would find it and yet here he was, turning the combination. It was as though he were opening his own heart, as if ghosts might rage out at him the moment he pulled the door open.  
  
Nothing raged out at him though, just the stale preserved scent of Ying's perfume, there for all these years. He took the black steel box from the safe and opened it in the same motion, thumb on the latch, pointer finger on the lid.. The vial was there, a single fingerprint in dried blood on the side. So much of his life had been washed clean, so very clean. Nothing was left of T, just a vial of medicine to save Shuichi and one slightly smeared finger print.  
  
Seeing the vial, the memory of Shuichi falling, these brought him back to where he'd been years ago, time misting backwards over him like the scent of Ying's cinnamon perfume. When the phone rang, he reached to where it had been on the desk, when it had been his desk, leaning over and effectively dodging the bullet that went right over where he would have been. The window shattered, tiny shards of glass spraying inward, even as much of it dropped like a falling, tinkling curtain.  
  
Medicine box closed and held to his chest, he dodged behind his desk, fumbling his mobile phone out. It was the present pressing back into him, the urgent need to make sure everything was fine that made him answer the phone while being shot at, glass from the window flying through the room. The caller id told him it was Tohma and he almost didn't answer, but the instinct of the present had the button pressed before he could decide. "Now is not good timing, Tohma-san."  
  
"K-san, where is Shindou? Who did you shoot? I am very close and I heard it. You didn't shoot Shindou, did you?"  
  
Glass still fell around him, raining down in sharp drops. "I didn't shoot anyone! Shindou-san is safe. He's in 'China'."  
  
Tohma knew more of K's past than anyone. He know that K might go to 'China' in an emergency, but he did not know about Sleeping Beauty or T. "Stay away Tohma! I am fixing everything!"  
  
"Put the phone down." Calculating and almost leering, the voice drew a sneer from K before he'd even looked up to find the masked intruder. "Your former colleagues are across town dealing with a very serious bomb threat." He made a dismissive 'tsk'ing' sound and smiled. "There is only building security, and they're terribly slow. Don't waste my time. Phone down, hands behind your head."  
  
He set the phone down, face up, and slowly moved his hands behind his head, looking for any opening. The box of antidote went behind his head as well, to be shoved under some paper on the table.  
  
"You've been played, K. The Sleeping Beauty made you stupid. You were American. Now, you're just a manager for a gay Japanese boy, running around on your belly after that blond asshole who'd bring such obscene music to America. Feel some shame!"  
  
The dart hit K's throat, almost point blank and blood responded almost as if it could push the dart and poison out. K's breath caught, held, and then he ground out, "Kill you," as his arms relaxed, his chin dropped forward.  
  
His attacker pressed a button on his watch. "Running slow," he said, tsking again. "I meant to have 45 seconds with you. I know you can hear me still. You're such a pervert! You know that? Think about that, uh? For the next ten hours. It's too bad you're not a girl. You're too pretty to be a man." Fingers, uninvited fingers, crept over his cheek, shoving him over onto his side, where they slipped behind his neck and broke his ponytail holder. In a moment, his long blond hair was spread around his face, arranged nicely. He wanted to snarl, to bite, to beat the living hell out of this guy!  
  
"Got to run, have an air current to catch. Thank you so much for getting the Kiss out for us. I think Sleeping Beauty was originally a French story. If whoever was on the phone is still listening. Take a look at Paris in the next couple weeks. I think they'll be much more peaceful soon, sleepy sleepy peaceful. Sin is history, pornographers!"  
  
K snarled, furious and he was sure his lip moved, just a little.  
  
Tohma's voice screamed through the phone. "K! K-San!"  
  
The thief picked up the phone as he stood, picking up the box of antidote. "Tsk tsk. K is sleeping so beautifully. A blond angel. Now that we've got the Kiss, all the sinners are going to go to sleep. All your evil will stop. Talk to him, if you like. I hear it helps with the desperation."  
  
He dropped the phone back by K's head and it slid down, disappearing partially under blond hair. Kicking K's thigh, nudging his legs apart. If it was designed to make K even more furious, it worked just fine.  
  
"K?" Tohma's voice was tentative, calmer, but still quite menacing, "K-san, let me help. I am coming."  
  
Terror clawed K. Failure, paralysis, death, not only for him, but for Shuichi as well and there was such risk for Tohma. K would have cried in frustration if he could have. "Gomen," he wheezed in broken sounding Japanese.  
  
"What is happening? Are you hurt?"  
  
The Sleeping Beauty poison he remembered wouldn't have let him reply, not to apologize or to snarl. He groaned then, forcing some air back out of his lungs.  
  
The responding security was, as the thief had predicted, standard building security. Only two guards came in, guns drawn, moving along the perimeter of the ruined office. K could only hear them, walking over the glass, talking to each other. One of them thought he might be dead, but didn't want to take his pulse to check. This didn't improve his mood either. Knowing it wouldn't work, he tried anyway, "Tohma."  
  
"K!" Relief flooded Tohma's voice. "What floor? What room?"  
  
As control returned to his body, it came in little steps, first his voice, and then a small twitch in his fingers. Response and control increased from there. He shoved the phone closer to his face, pasting hair into his mouth. "I'm immune." His voice was rough, the sounds smeared together. "The kiss is still in my blood. Tohma it was a trap. Terrorists."  
  
"What? Terrorists? He was serious? Paris?"  
  
One of the security guards squatted down in front of him, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "Are you hurt, Sir?"  
  
"No, no," K lied. "Have to get the antidote back. Shuichi needs," he said, lower, aiming the words at Tohma, trusting the keyboardist more than he'd know.  
  
"I will be right there!" Tohma said, voice staticky in the phone.  
  
"Sir, EMS is on the way. Can you give me any information?"  
  
"No. I am fine. Tohma, hurry." He wasn't fine yet, even though he'd managed to sit himself up. Neither of his legs had any sensation. His voice slurred and he worried that would only bring Tohma more quickly.  
  
The security guard reached out and jerked the phone from his still weak fingers. "I don't think he needs to hurry."  
  
When the other security guard came around the desk, the one in front of K brought his pistol around and fired without warning. K lunged ineffectively, causing the man to have to fire twice. The impact knocked the second security guard back, hands over his chest. Somehow in the movements, the lunge and the shot, the first guard got a handful of blond hair in his fist. Roughly, he jerked the former agent to his feet. "My uncle thought the Kiss would be like a vaccine. I didn't believe him. Maybe it's just you. Either way, we just have to tie up all those loose ends."  
  
"You need therapy!" It was a private joke, very quiet in Bad Luck and Nittle Grasper inner circles.  
  
"I need therapy? You're the one helping them strangle the world with filth! You sold out your American heritage to Seguchi Tohma, crawling after him like a little lap dog!"  
  
K swung at him, but he was too weak to cause any damage yet.  
  
"You're recovering so quickly! It's amazing. Too bad we can't have you to the lab for a while." They'd drawn near the opening, the shattered window with a couple dozen floors between them and the sidewalk. "Have you ever wanted to fly, K?"  
  
The conversation had been in English. When Tohma's voice joined them, in English, they both turned to look. The owner of Nittle Grasper Records had lost his coat and his bare arms flexed under unfashionable sweat. "Let go of him."  
  
This was the unexpected event. In that moment of hesitation, K jerked himself free. The fake security guard brought his pistol up to aim at Tohma. Tohma fired.  
  
Taser darts shot out, imbedding into the man's chest and hip. He jerked forward, reaching for the barbed darts. K interlaced his fists and hit him hard on the back. Tohma had crossed the room and was prying the pistol from the man's hand, careful not to get any of his own prints on it by use of a red silk handkerchief. "It was a present from Eiri, my lucky silk." He smiled very softly at K, tenderly almost, then kicked the man on the floor before putting a foot on the back of his neck.  
  
"How did you?" K asked, holding himself up with a hand on the wall.  
  
"I followed you since you took Shindou-san. What is going on?"  
  
"Couldn't leave him in the hospital," K said, not giving any explanation more than that. "You know what I used to do. Before I left, I was poisoned. It is the same poison that Shuichi was hit with. I came here to get the only antidote. It was a trap. They meant only for me to come here to get it so that they could steal it. I have to stop them or many more people will die."  
  
Tohma hadn't moved his foot from the fake guard's neck. "Do you know where it was taken? Can more be made?"  
  
K pointed to the broken window. "If more could be made, they'd have done it."  
  
"But you are immune. Is it a virus? Perhaps the antibodies are in your blood."  
  
"Perhaps," said a new voice, confident, disgusted, coming from a man blocking the door. "What are you doing in my office, K?"  
  
"Rackles. Or is that R now? Better question is," K pulled his own gun now, just dying to shoot someone! Finally. "Why weren't you in your office!?"  
  
"What was in the safe?"  
  
"Can he help us, K?" Tohma studied the man, respectful, but so slightly that it wasn't really respect.  
  
"Help you to what? Ruin my office?"  
  
"No, you do that fine. We need to make an antidote, very quickly," K said, letting Tohma slip an arm around him as other agents came into take care of the captured security guard.  
  
"And we need to hunt down some very rude terrorists," Tohma added, holding K just a little more securely than was needed.  
  
K's replacement eyed them. "It's Shindou Shuichi? He's been poisoned?"  
  
Tohma locked his fingers behind his back, hiding the taser gun, and submerging his urge to shoot this uncooperative man. It worked so well for K most of the time though. "Yes, it is the singer from Bad Luck."  
  
"Bad Luck? I hear Yuki Eiri is writing a story for him. You know our labs are always at your disposal, K. It's good to know we can count on your help in special situations as well."  
  
The pistol shook as K brought it. Strength faded in his legs and he found more of his weight resting on Tohma. "I wouldn't let you go," Tohma said softly.  
  
"What he wants, it's expensive, Tohma."  
  
"Then we'll pay together." 


	12. 12

Sleeping Beauty Chapter 11  
  
"Once there was a man lost in a forest, far from any place," Yuki began, stroking Shuichi's fingers, "And the forest held many magical elements, both beautiful and horrifying. So that as he made his way through the darkness, he was given both faint hope of rescue and a constant terror that he would be lost forever."  
  
"Yuki-san," Ryuichi interrupted, "Don't you know any more cheerful stories?"  
  
Golden eyes glared at the child like singer and his kumagoro. "I tell interesting stories, not the kind that come in color books."  
  
Shuichi laughed, even if his laughter was trapped in the sleeping castle of his body. Eiri had really grown and Ryuichi was here. With both of them here with him, he wasn't afraid. His thumb brushed Eiri's thumb very slightly. In his imagination, he was in the forest, walking quietly through tall dark trees, looking for magical elements. Eiri's words built the world for him, giving him a sliver of moonlight through the trees and the faint howl of wolf in the distance.  
  
The man he was searching for in this forest was his lover, his pairbond. Eiri's voice named him Naris. Shuichi could see the man in his mind. Muscular and strong, broad shoulders, but with Eiri's blond hair down to his shoulders. He was supposed to have blue eyes, deep as sapphires, but Shuichi wanted them golden, light and unique, like Eiri's. Every time Eiri mentioned them blue, Shuichi imagined them golden again.  
  
In the story, Naris could not remember how he'd gotten into forest, only that it was damp and cold and he couldn't talk to anyone. If he didn't talk to anyone, then he wouldn't get into any more trouble.  
  
When he realized he could never find his way out of the forest, he built a castle. It was built of petals from a flower that grew at the edge of the dark lake in the center of the forest. First there was a frame built from tall white saplings that arched and intertwined. Then there were layers of the flower petals, stretched out like black silk, drying like the impenetrable scales of the most fearsome dragon. Inside, there were many rooms, as many rooms as Naris could imagine, shifting and rearranging for him. Soon he was no longer able to find the door and he could only stand on the highest tower and rule over a world that he could never walk in again. Distantly he longed for what lay beyond the forest, but the ache could not be healed from within the safety of his castle.  
  
Shuichi didn't like that story very much. He'd gotten stuck seeing this Naris with Eiri's eyes and he could see him crying at the top of his black flower petal castle. He wanted to be a phoenix, to rise up like fire and burn the prison away from his lover. Eiri called him pink fire, so it was easy to imagine.  
  
"Fushicho watched the castle grow day by day from where he lived, high above the forest floor. The flower spirits were angry to have so many of their petals taken, he knew and they would extract a high price in exchange for the security they offered to Naris."  
  
Shuichi tapped his mental fingers waiting to hear what this guy looked like and what he was gonna do about the evil flowers. Eiri's voice painted the image for him, of a sprite, or a phoenix, a male, slender and looking very much like Shuichi, though he figured, cuz it was the hero, he wanted it to look like himself. He wanted to save Eiri, to drive away the depression that surrounded him, even still sometimes. Tears burned his eyes and he couldn't clench his eyes to stop the tears from slipping down his face, couldn't wipe them away, as they tracked over his stage make up. 'I'm sorry for calling you an asshole, Eiri,' he thought, 'I'm sorry I didn't breach the walls sooner or make better lyrics. I'm sorry I'm loud and rude and I'm sorry I can't tell you this!'  
  
"This Fushicho was just like you, Shuichi, full of life and kindness," Eiri said, his thumb wiping away one tear track, then the other.  
  
"Was he pink too," Ryuichi asked, holding Shuichi's other hand so that he held it and Kumagoro close to his heart.  
  
"Yes, he was pink. Pink hair that was so long he wore it like clothing. It was braided into hundreds of tiny braids with a little crystal bell at the end of each so when he moved music flowed around him and he was constantly moving, dancing and leaping from tree to tree. This was safe for him to do, because he also had wings. These were not ordinary wings, like an angel might have, but wings of pink fire. The feathers were streaks of neon pink, blazing with reds and pearly whites, trailing down like flickering ribbons around his ankles when he stood still." Eiri told the story lovingly, as if it were a vision of Shuichi he described, some metaphor for life and love.  
  
Shuichi liked this part. He could imagine himself leaping from tree to tree with wings of pink flame. Ryuichi poofed into his dream though, another one of his own kind, though with blue and golden chestnut colored wings, short wild hair and kumagoro. Shuichi tried to imagine away the stuffed pink bunny, and only managed to change it to a pink butterfly the size of a Frisbee flying him around Ryuichi-sprite's head.  
  
In his daydream he shoved Ryuichi-sprite and he shoved back, leaping off the limb, soaring down towards the castle of black flower petals. Shuichi... er, Fushicho leaped off the branch and soared along. Hovering above black castle, staring down at the beautiful golden eyed man imprisoned there, the Ryuichi-sprite reached out and took hold of Fushicho's hand holding him in the air, even when the pink sprite was too caught up in studying the man to remember to fly.  
  
As time went by though, the blond man in the castle had less and less energy. He came to the top of the castle less and less. Fushicho kept drawing closer and closer though, as if he could perhaps hear the man within his castle if he were closer.  
  
Shuichi thought the bed was getting softer under him, indenting and letting him sink down into it. He told himself it was just his mind playing tricks on him though. He told him the same thing when his thumb didn't really move over Eiri's thumb when he wanted it to. Instead, Eiri's story drew him back in. It felt so real to him. He could feel the sizzle of his fiery wings against the back of his bare ankles. He felt the fingers take hold of his and for a moment he wasn't Shuichi at all, he was completely Fushicho. The hand holding his was Ryuichi-sprite's. He turned, wings flaring out, and looked into his friend's eyes. Concern, more than he would have expected, showed in his blue eyes. "Stay with me, Shuichi. Don't go down into there. Don't go into the darkness."  
  
Shuichi/Fushicho preened for a moment, grinning, his own paralyzed body non- existent to him. "Nothing can hurt me! Ryuichi! I'm a phoenix, just like you. Darkness can't destroy me, but that man," he said, turning to point, to tug a little at Ryuichi's hand. "He'll die in the darkness. I have to get him out!"  
  
"No! You can't breath in the castle! It's not meant for us! You'll suffocate!"  
  
"Don't be silly!" Shuichi/Fushicho jerked his hand back, planting his fists on his hips. "I'd know if it were going to kill me!"  
  
"You can't know that. If you go in there, you wouldn't be able to find your way back!"  
  
"Don't be afraid, Ryuichi! I know you love me, but I have to go after the man!"  
  
Ryuichi, the singer without fire wings, lay down on the bed next to Shuichi, watching his chest. "He's breathing too fast, but not very deep, Yuki-san."  
  
Yuki squeezed Shuichi's hand and when he got no response, he felt for a pulse on his wrist. Rapid, weak, Yuki knew intellectually what it meant, but he wasn't going to deal with it emotionally, so he kept holding Shuichi's limp wrist, counting pulses.  
  
Ryuichi was even less able to deal with it. He was down on his knees talking right into Shuichi's ear, telling him that he couldn't die, couldn't go away into the darkness! That he was loved and needed and he had to hold on..  
  
"Ryuichi!" Yuki snarled. "Do you know CPR?"  
  
The singer, tears blurring his vision nodded. "Why?"  
  
"We have to get him off the bed, onto a hard surface. He's stopped breathing." Yuki said, distant, numb, as he lifted Shuichi into his arms and away from the wrinkled velvet of the bed.  
  
Shuichi's dream shifted. Now he was deep inside the dark flower castle, in a room with no walls, looking at the back of the blond man he'd fallen in love with. His wings of fire spread out around him, lighting the room as if he were a neon flame butterfly. "I've come to save you. Come out into the light. My friend will call for us, and we will find our way out."  
  
The dream shifted again and lips pressed to his, tender and wet, kissing sharing souls. He arched into the kiss, but then his chest exploded in fire, his wings wrapping around him protectively. No matter how he struggled the pain, it pressed down on his chest, contractions, even and deep, almost as if he were giving birth.  
  
Looking up at the man holding him, he gasped, unable to breath without the life-giving kiss. Golden eyes cried sapphire tears, silently, his mouth moving without sound. Then the kiss returned, breathing into him, breathing out the pain. When he looked over his shoulders, it was Ryuichi-sprite hugging him, hands around his chest, and he knew that the pain would come again, but there was no air to force words of protest out.  
  
"Shine, Shuichi, shine!" He didn't know the name; he was Fushicho, the phoenix. Shine... phoenix. die then be reborn. In the dream his body relaxed in their arms, the man with the golden eyes kissed him again, holding his face between both hands, forcing the kiss of life into him, but his body didn't respond as it had.  
  
Yuki and Ryuichi knelt on either side of Shuichi, Yuki giving breaths, counting, Ryuichi, completely adult like, doing chest compressions. Six minutes. They ticked down for Yuki. He didn't know how many minutes they could keep Shuichi alive like this, but he could do this all his life, do nothing else rather than let his singer go.  
  
The crash that came from across the room though was Tohma. Sleeveless, disheveled beyond Tohma possible, he ran through the door, hit his knees and rolled on the carpet. In one hand he held a black box. Yuki ignored him after the first glance though. He was giving breaths.  
  
Tohma though scrambled closer, breath ragged and opened the box. Yuki had expected to see some transparent medicine, a syringe, something, but not a syringe filled with red. With shaking fingers, he pulled it out and uncapped it. The count down on his watch said he had two minutes. "K is immune. In lab, sterilized, cleaned, should work."  
  
Yuki assessed that. It didn't sound probable, but it was all he had. Disgusted, he took the syringe from Tohma's fingers. "Continue, Ryuichi. Tohma, you breath when I tell you."  
  
"Yes, alright." Tohma moved around to the other side of Yuki and bent over to do breath for Shuichi.  
  
Shuichi's wrist in his lap, Yuki tapped the side of the syringe, making sure all the air bubbles rose and exited before tucking his arm between his own arm and chest and tapping a vein in his inner elbow. The needle slipped into Shuichi's flesh and then the red of the kiss disappeared into him. Tohma was giving breaths, and Yuki held the spot with his fingers, drawing the needle out. If it worked half as fast as the poison had, Yuki would owe the blond manager anything he wanted.  
  
Tohma drew back from one breath, took at deep breath to give another, but Shuichi's chest rose on his own, once, again deeper, and he groaned. Yuki breathed again then too. "Owwwwwwww," Shuichi whined. "Owwwww! I hurt! My chest!"  
  
Yuki sat back, holding Shuichi's hand and laughed. Ryuichi took his interlaced fingers from his friend's chest. For a moment, only Yuki's laughter filled the room.  
  
"Now we can get him to the hospital?" Ryuichi laughed. "Kuma says he thinks Shuichi has broken ribs."  
  
How was he supposed to tell Shuichi's story? The story he'd planned was poetic and elegant and held little of the gritty, struggle to live that had been in their lives the last few hours. It felt anti-climactic. He knew it shouldn't, that he'd just been telling Shuichi anything to keep him alive. The beautiful Fushicho would needed a story that was worthy of Shuichi.  
  
"Eiri." Shuichi whispered, eyes glazed over as if he were seeing a different world. Tohma moved out of the way, left over adrenaline making him look like the world was still on fire.  
  
"I'm here. It's good to hear your voice, Shuichi-kun." For that moment, he was completely certain he'd never tell Shuichi to be quiet again. "I love you."  
  
Being very careful how he moved him, he slipped an arm under his neck and kissed his forehead. The story wasn't the most important thing right now. Later he'd write it, write it so it burned the ears of those who liked violence better than love, but right now he'd just hold him. It was hard to explain, this emotional unfurling within his heart. He'd started Shuichi's story, hiding behind wanting to give his lover a gift. To write for Shuichi or to write for his editor had been his initial question. Neither was what he needed now. He needed to tell his own story. It burned in him to write his love, to write how Shuichi's fiery life and love drew him out of his own castle of black flowers. That Shuichi lay breathing in his arms, holding his hand now, this was his Eiri's story now.  
  
For Shuichi, the story unfolded still. One last kiss, Naris' lips and soul to Fushicho's, Ryuichi-sprite's arms wrapped around him, and the impossible happened. He renewed without death. His wings flexed, the fire in them igniting, dancing and flaring, wrapping pink fire around both Naris and Ryuichi-sprite. His long braids danced in it, making the crystal bells sing and the darkness surrounding them all blasted away, sending black flower petals in every direction away from them. The roar of the flying petals, of his tinkling bells, even the breathing of Naris against him, the sizzle of Ryuichi-sprite's fiery blue wings, all these sounds blended and layered with his deepest love, the love of music and he threw his arms over his head, cried out in song and lifted up away from them. He spun in the air, spreading pink light over the whole of their area of the forest.  
  
Flowers and leaves pushed through the saplings that had formed the skeleton of the castle and Fushicho reveled Naris and Ryuichi-sprite watching him, holding him with their eyes because that's the only way one can hold a phoenix. He heard Naris' whispered, 'I love you.'  
  
Even as he spun in the neon pink flame, he knew. He wasn't a phoenix, he was Shindou Shuichi and his lover held him because neither death nor neon flames would ever keep them apart.  
  
Epilogue:  
  
Eiri rode with Shuichi in the ambulance, having the hardest time not smacking the people ever time Shuichi yelped or moaned. It was the lion Yuki with glaring golden eyes that climbed in after him. Tohma thought Shuichi looked frailer than he really was though.  
  
Ryuichi made a dive for the ambulance as well, but Tohma caught him. "Let them go, Ryuichi."  
  
With a sigh, Ryuichi watched them drive away, Tohma still holding tight to the back of his shirt. "But I want to see that Shu-chan is okay!"  
  
"He'll be alright, Ryuichi." Tohma said it with conviction. He'd watched K make a strong recovery. "And we have plans. Would you like to help catch the people who hurt Shuichi?"  
  
"Yes." Ryuichi turned, completely bishonen then, blue eyes cold and angry. "Can we kill them, Tohma?"  
  
"Perhaps, but the plan is to catch them. They might know more things so we should catch them."  
  
Ryuichi watched the ambulance turn the corner, lights blaring. Kumagoru hung from his hand by one ear and he nodded. "They must be sick people, Tohma, to want to hurt Shuichi."  
  
Tohma slipped an arm around Ryuichi's shoulder and drew him towards the car he'd come in. Ying was waiting with K and they knew where to catch these terrorists, Tohma explained on the way.  
  
zzzZZzz   
  
Shuichi made the worst patient. Eiri found it quite amusing actually and reassuring. If there was enough energy for that kind of fight, Shuichi would really be okay. They forced him out of the room though for a bit and he was in the hall with a coffee, wishing for a cigarette. It had been hours since he'd had one and now that the crisis was ending, he wanted one. He also wanted to know where Tohma and Ryuichi had gone to.  
  
A nurse hurried past him on her way to the nurses station. He followed her, on a whim and there on the television was a breaking news story. It seems that a terrorist ring had been arrested in downtown Tokyo. Ten people arrested, a great deal of high tech equipment confiscated. Already it was being hushed up, but there was an unsubstantiated rumor that Seguchi Tohma and Sakuma Ryuichi had been involved in the arrest, as well as Bad Luck's Manager.  
  
In an immediate breaking news, the station went to a press conference where the US Ambassador to Japan assured everyone that no member from Bad Luck or Nittle Grasper had done anything wrong, only that they had cooperated when there had been threats against them and because of that cooperation, much harm was prevented from ever happening. They were heroes.  
  
Shuichi didn't want to be a hero though, he wanted to get out of the hospital and go to the coast. Wearing his pants and just his shirt, still the clothes he'd worn on stage, he'd sneaked up behind Yuki to watch the last of the broad cast. His ribs were taped and he felt happy. "Eiri, I want to go to the coast now."  
  
Eiri's arm went around him, holding him close. "As soon as they say its safe."  
  
Dr. Sanaka found them there and she frowned, hands on her hips. "Shidou- san, until we find out why you stopped breathing, you need to stay here where we can watch you."  
  
"Is that the only reason you'd hold him, Sensei?"  
  
"Isn't that reason enough," She asked, frowning. "We will of course, arrange a private room and Yuki-san may stay."  
  
"We're going to the coast." Eiri said. They both knew why Shuichi had stopped breathing and there wasn't anything the hospital could do about it. He squeezed Shuichi's shoulders gently. "There will be too much media here soon, Dr. Sanaka. We will arrange a nurse, if we need one."  
  
Her mouth fell open, but Eiri just slipped his arm around Shuichi's back and they left. A taxi, then a rented car, and they were off in search of moon and waves. Later he would have Tohma send a computer and clothes. They wouldn't need either for a little while. Stories are best in the flesh sometimes.  
  
Author's note:  
  
This is a shameless plug.. if you'd like to discuss this pairing, or anything Gravi related please come join: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YukiandShuichi/  
  
And if you'd rather: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RyuichiandShuichiML  
  
I don't know if it's a bad thing to advert my groups on here, but I've had a very good time writing this story and I'd love to have some groups to chat with people about Gravi. Please feel welcome to come chat too. Nix 


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